Opinion
High above the M25, a buzzard cuts through the December sky. Scanning the tarmac below, it spots something edible and begins its rapid descent. At ground level, Michelle Munt is driving her smart car, completely unaware that her life is about to change forever. Traffic ahead suddenly slows. She takes her foot off the gas. The lorry behind should be slowing too. But in those crucial seconds of reaction, the buzzard has smashed beak-first into its windscreen. The driver can’t see the road, or Michelle, and sends her relative tin can of a car flying into the crash barrier.
In a packed auditorium not far from the Yangtze River, hundreds of delegates are on their feet clapping vigorously. They have just discovered that one of their national heroes has been sitting among them undetected all evening. Xia Boya is China’s rehabilitation poster boy (or man, since he’s now 70). In his twenties during an attempt to scale Everest, his team hit bad weather just 250 metres from the summit. Xia gave his sleeping bag to a teammate who was struggling to survive. But his kindness came with a heavy cost – frostbite and the subsequent amputation of both his legs. Yet 43 years after that failed mission, he finally achieved his dream of climbing the world’s most unforgiving peak.
Having worked as a neurosciences occupational therapist in the NHS for more than 15 years, it felt somewhat surreal leaving behind my team and service, which had become deeply embedded in my daily routine. The opportunity to undertake an exciting new challenge in my career, despite the anxieties of the unknown and a loyalty to a service of which I was extremely fond and proud, paved the way for a move that in the end proved difficult to decline. Before I could hesitate, I was driving to Cornwall to complete an immediate needs assessment and I was delighted to complete my report within the 21-day deadline. Phew! I reflect on my first year in case management noting the increased consumption of coffee but more significantly with immense pride of my achievements.
Rachel Swanick’s, senior therapist at Chroma, recent blog (find here) about how therapists, and parents, can speak to children about the disasters or tragedies they are exposed to through the media, raised a lot of questions. In particular, how to take these ideas and use them when talking about trauma, more specifically for people who have experienced their own disasters and the injuries, both mental and physical, that these leave.
Led by a team of occupational, physio, music, and speech and language therapists, the delivery of music therapy has, so far, been enthusiastically received by patients, staff, and family members across the ward, and there is now demand for music therapy on both the hyper-acute and in-patient rehabilitation wards. Working closely alongside the team at Charing Cross, Chroma has been delivering two weekly days of neurologic music therapy (NMT) and traditional psychoanalytic music therapy to help the multidisciplinary team achieve patient recovery goals, and to offer them a way of managing the emotional demands of life immediately after a stroke.
Jessie’s Fund teamed up with Chroma to deliver music therapy to paediatric patients in York Hospital, as music therapist Steven Lyons reports.
Dr Gemma Costello introduces SPECS, a psychosocial training package for professionals working with children and young people with acquired brain injury.
By David Withers, partner in the serious injury team in Irwin Mitchell’s Sheffield Office.
Rachel Swanick, senior therapist at Chroma, on helping children come to terms with traumatic and upsetting events.
Neurokinex is pioneering new technology and a new model to address health inequalities experienced by people living with paralysis. The social enterprise was founded in 2013 by Harvey Sihota, owner of a spinal cord injury, with a mission to redefine the landscape for newly injured people when they first leave hospital. Sihota says: “A change [...]
